MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.

11/28 Matt Garza’s availability

Both FOX Sports’ Jon Morosi and ESPN’s Buster Olney reported on Monday that the Cubs are letting teams know that Matt Garza is available. However, moving Garza doesn’t make much sense. One of the reasons the Cubs were willing to part with five players, including four highly touted prospects, for the right-hander was that Garza, 28, is under team control for two more years, and won’t be a free agent until 2014. He was the Cubs’ best pitcher in 2011, despite a 10-10 record. He didn’t get much run support and left with the lead and did not factor in the decision in seven of his starts. If the Cubs had more pitching depth in the farm system, Garza would be expendable.

17 Comments

That was Jim Hendry that gave up 5 prospects for Garza. None of them are good except maybe Hak ju lee. They won’t be major leaguers because they were “developed” by Jim Hendry’s guys. Let Theo trade Garza and get some real prospects into our system that currently has none. By the time the Cubs are competitive again Garza will be into his 30s and a lot more expensive.

Why wouldn’t make sense to trade somebody like Garza who has value? At least Epstein KNOWS what he’s doing and realizes that having Garza under control for two more years means NOTHING to a team that will struggle to compete during those two years. Whether or not the five players that Hendry traded have talent or not, did it really make sense to give up five guys to get a very talented pitcher for a terrible team that everybody knew wouldn’t compete for the three years Garza would be under control? I think Hendry is the one that has made plenty of trades that made little or no sense and Epstein is the one to reverse that trend. Obviously the minor league talent needs to be re-stocked and if Epstein can get a few players that are better than the five Hendry gave up then so be it.

At that time it was a bad move to give up 5 guys for Garza. But not to Hendry because we were only 1 pitcher away from contention. But if we trade Garza for top prospects from Texas or New York, the deal would be nice, because in this weak pitching market, teams will overpay for Garza.

ohmyhesonfire…I think you just correctly summed up Hendry’s “long term plan” (ha!) that being to him the Cubs were always just one player away from contention. Whether that palyer is Bradley, Fukodome or Garza….always just one player away….

IF and say if the Cubs are going to give up Garza to Texas or NY, maybe throw in the Marlins and Nationals and go big, trade Garza and Z and anyone needing pitching would be getting 2 SP, albeit one headache in Z, but Ozzie wants Z. Then you need to trade Byrd for a rookie and Dempster and anyone else that brings value if we are going the kid route and I am fine with that.

I guess, I was hoping we would go the other route for the short term and get Buhrle and Fielder and maybe one or two more players and compete while our rookies are developing. We have the money.

Why wouldn’t Theo say he is available? That opens the door for more talks…. NO ONE is untouchable…. YES even Castro could be had for a great deal… That’s just smart business…. why hold onto an asset if you can get more future value from him? Does this mean Garza is absolutely goign to be traded? NO! I highly doubt someone hands over enough to Theo for him to pull the trigger BUT it could happen. Things are changing this isn’t your Hendry’s Cubs anymore.

You tell her petrey! Why anybody would think trading Garza doesn’t make sense…doesn’t make sense. As long as a smart GM like Epstein can improve the club by trading ANYBODY…then ANYBODY should be available. If Hendry were still GM then I can see Castro, Marshall and uh…uh…well Castro and Marhsall anyway as being untouchable because I would think Hendry would pull the trigger and not get value in return. We now live in the Epstein era and he has already wisely offered arbitration to Ramirez and Pena not worrying if they return or not becuase it would only be for one more year. Hendry probably would have signed Pena to a three year extension already!!

What doesn’t make sense to me is that the most chatter seems to be around picking up Mitch Moreland. Moreland is a young, left-handed hitting first baseman with potential…we already have one of those in LaHair. We certainly can’t afford to give up a commodity we are extremely low on, starting pitching (and our best starting pitcher for that matter), for a commodity we already have. The only thing that DOES make sense to me about this is that by putting a name out there of quality like Matt Garza, the Cubs can trick other teams into letting us know who their “untouchables” are that really aren’t so untouchable in the hopes of a real trade for our other guys like Soto, Soriano, Zambrano, Marmol, etc.
Also, I’m not sure where the impression came from that the prospects we gave up for Garza were bad; those prospects were Sam Fuld, Robinson Chirinos, Brandon Guyer, Hak-Ju Lee and Chris Archer. Fuld, Chirinos, and Guyer played in the majors last year and all 5 players are still considered very highly touted prospects. I’m not saying they’ll all be “the ones that got away,” but don’t dismiss them as bad.

If the Cubs got a 1B or 3B in return for Garza (among others) and if they could add another starting pitcher somehow (Wilson via free agency?), I could see them trading Garza. But a huge plus with Garza — besides being the potential No. 1 starter next year — is that he’s under team control for two more years. As for the prospects, Hak-Ju Lee & Chris Archer were the best of the group

Well if we’re going to look at it that way, I’d take Prince Fielder (27) over both and trade LaHair and Garza and whoever else you want to throw in elsewhere for young pitching. Getting Garza’s arbitration number off the books should help pay for Prince. I just see it as more responsible to add pitching and defense over bats right now to help build a team to play “the Cubs way.” I’m fine with us all having varying opinions though, it makes this time of year more exciting and these types of blogs more popular and fun to read!

I don’t see having Garza under control for two years as a huge plus or as a number one starter. The huge plus would be his trade value BECAUSE he is under control. If Epstein sees more value in trading Garza than keeping him that in itself is contrary to what Hendry saw therefore… A GOOD THING. Trade Garza or keep him, either way there is much confidence in Epstein to do the RIGHT thing, something which was missing during the Hendry campaign.

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